A Complimentary Kind of Broken
Title: A Complimentary Kind of Broken
Length: ~1200 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Unbeta'd- because why start now? Erm, depressing, a little bit dark
Summary: Human AU- Stiles meets Derek at a hospital. They find in each other someone who finally understands and just lets them be.
A/N: Oh geez. I hadn't meant for this to come out the way that it did, but nonetheless I like it fine enough. :P I may or may not have a strange thing for smoking and people who communicate by not talking. Also- this fic has exactly zero dialogue and it makes me weirdly happy.
The first time you see him is different really from the first time that you notice him.
The first time you see him, your face is covered in tears and snot and you’re babble-screaming incoherently while trying to drag your father through the emergency doors. He takes one look at you, hesitates the barest second before measuring your desperation, your distress, and springs to life. Ideally there would have been a team of people and a stretcher and just folks who would have known what they were doing in general, but it actually took less time to drive him here yourself than call an ambulance, and anyway, it wasn’t like you would have been able to pay for that. His mouth is contorted in an ugly shape that can’t mean anything except pain, but the really frightening part is that there’s no scream, no sound coming out of him but this hollow suction that brings up images of someone desperately trying to keep their soul from leaving their body.
It’s all mostly a blur. You can only remember these small, unimportant things. The smell of antiseptic is familiar, but in the kind of way that makes your heart clench in fear. One of the nurses that rushes to your aid is wearing lipstick so vibrant you can’t help but watch her mouth, even if you can’t figure what she’s saying. The floor is sticky, but you don’t know if it’s because of your shoes or the cleaner they use. Too many people seem more interested in your name than in your dad’s condition. The blue paint on the doors they leave you behind is peeling. You pick at it for hours.
~~~
The first time you notice him is a day or two later, bumping into each other in the hospital cafeteria. He’s impossible not to notice, at least when you’re not worried the only person left in your life is going to leave you. Alone. He’s tall, dark, and broody, but standing at the coffee station, stirring the same cold cup of sludge for the last ten minutes makes him look as small and fragile as any of the other people who find this place all-too-familiar. His clothes are wrinkled, his stubble a little out of control (though that point could be put up for debate), and that distance in his eyes all put together the picture of someone who’s afraid to leave.
You know that feeling. You’d done all you could to make sure that your dad never ended up here for something you could control, because you’d already experienced what it was like to have circumstances out of your hands, and yet, here you are, again. The staff that recognize you from before have nothing but pity behind their tittering smiles. You prefer the people like him, the ghosts that look right through you. You’re not apprehensive to break down in front of them, they know it’s something that that you just need to do, that no amount of back rubbing and empty ‘it’ll be okay’s’ will make better.
~~~
After two weeks it’s actually more awkward to ignore each other than to acknowledge the other’s presence.
You’re the first to make a move. He’s been asleep across two waiting room chairs, and you wish you could just let him rest while he’s too exhausted to force himself awake, but he’s just ready to fall off the edge of them, and the ground will be far less sympathetic than you. You tip toe over, even though you’re just going to shake him awake in a second, and place a gentle hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t stir slowly like you expected, it’s much more violent than that. His eyes flash open and he sits bolt upright, hands grasping like claws and one of his nails catches your eye. It hurts like a bitch, but all you do is hiss and bring a hand to your face. When he gets his bearings and realizes what he’s done, he doesn’t even look apologetic. You didn’t really expect him too. As time goes by everything basically just gets numbed down to relevant and irrelevant, and he’s been here longer than you have.
What you don’t expect him to do is take your face in his hands and push away your own. The huff of air he lets out when he pulls your eyelid open is more annoyed than anything else, and yet he still fetches a cool wet cloth to blot at the angry skin before ringing a few stinging droplets directly into your eye. It’s unnerving how easily he moves about doing all of this. It only makes you want to know him more.
So you flash him a crooked smile and take the seat next to him, even if it only earns you a frown.
~~~
The two of you don’t talk much, there’s not an awful lot to say.
Being here feels like getting caught in limbo, like there’s nothing outside the barren walls, the endless drone of PA’s, the bland routine. You both know it, why talk about it? So you play checkers with little more than half the pieces, and when you win (mostly by obvious cheating that he won’t bother to call you on) you get to steal his jello at lunch. You draw treasure maps, write epic tales, scribble nonsense into his skin. He paints symbols, plays at mythology, ascribes meaning to the constellation of your blemishes because what else are pens for?
One night you hijack lamps and put on a private shadow puppet show for only each other. There’s a quiet, little town that’s set aflame and most everyone dies. The survivors leave but fall unexpectedly ill and pass quickly leaving behind children. The ones who are left go mad.
~~~
You find out that pills are hard to steal, but sneaking joints from outside in is easy enough and the roof is an excellent place to share them. The wind is cold enough to make your face sting, but still so gentle as to let him teach you to blow smoke rings and let the fumes curl back up through your nose to cycle again. You pretend like you’re a dragon. Shotgunning leads to kissing, but kissing is a final destination because libido is hard to come by when your clothes smile like sickness.
All the same his mouth is warm and his fingers hurt where they press into your ribs, but you like the way that reminds you not to let yourself slip. He makes little noises that sound like growling and he likes to bite, sharp enough to draw blood. You whine and draw red lines down his back with your nails, lick the copper tang off the tip of his tongue.
The sunset sets everything aglow and if you didn’t know any better you’d think it was trying to thaw the both of you out, to try and fix you. Fixed isn’t something you think you can achieve, but a complimentary kind of broken might do fine enough.